William Lane (1861-1917) was a pioneer of the Australian labour movement. Eight-hour day banner, Melbourne, 1856 University of Melbourne site where Stonemasons won the 8 hour day in 1856 The history of the Australian labour movement reaches back to the 19th century and the movement has a long tradition of organised unions of workers and links to political activity. ...

He was born in Bristol, England, and died in Auckland, New Zealand. As a youth he migrated to Canada, then to the United States, where he worked first as a printer, then as a reporter for the Detroit Free Press (1881), there meeting his future wife Ann MacGuire. In 1885 they migrated to Brisbane, Australia, where Lane immediately got work as a feature writer for the weekly Queensland Figaro, then as a columnist for the Brisbane Courier and Evening Telegraph, writing under a number of pseudonyms ("Lucinda Sharpe", who some consider to be the work of Annie Lane, and "Sketcher"). Bristol is a unitary authority with city and ceremonial county status in South West England. ... Wikimedia Commons has media related to: England Travel guide to England from Wikitravel English language English law English (people) List of monarchs of England – Kings of England family tree List of English people Angeln (region in northern Germany, presumably the origin of the Angles for whom England is named) UK... Auckland, in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest urban area in New Zealand. ... Along with The Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press is one of the two major metro Detroit newspapers. ... 1885 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the state of Queensland, Australia. ...

A life-long teetotaller, in 1886 he created an Australia-wide sensation by spending a night in the Brisbane lock-up disguised as a drunk, and subsequently reporting the conditions of the cells as "Henry Harris".

With the growth of the Australian labour movement, Sketcher's columns, especially his "Labour Notes" in the Evening Telegraph, became increasingly an outlet for the Trades Hall, and Lane himself was to be seen at meetings supporting all manner of popular causes, speaking out with his "American twang" against repressive laws and practices, on the one hand, and the Chinese on the other. Eight-hour day banner, Melbourne, 1856 University of Melbourne site where Stonemasons won the 8 hour day in 1856 The history of the Australian labour movement reaches back to the 19th century and the movement has a long tradition of organised unions of workers and links to political activity. ... Trades Hall is a building in the suburb of Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. ...

After becoming the de facto editor of the Courier, Lane departed in November 1887 to found the weekly The Boomerang, "a live newspaper, racy, of the soil", in which pro-worker themes and lurid racism were brought to a fever-pitch by both "Sketcher" and "Lucinda Sharpe". He became a powerful supporter of Emma Miller and the Women's suffrage movement. A strong proponent of Henry George's Single Tax Movement, Lane became increasingly committed to a radically alternative society, and dropped the Boomerang for its private ownership issues. Emma Miller Emma Miller (June 26, 1839 - January 22, 1917) was a pioneer trade union organiser, suffragist, and founder of the Australian Labor Party in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. ... The movement for womens suffrage, led by suffragists (peaceful protestors) and suffragettes (violent protestors), was a social, economic and political reform movement aimed at extending the suffrage (the right to vote) to women, advocating equal suffrage (abolition of graded votes) rather than universal suffrage (abolition of all discrimination, for... Henry George Henry George (September 2, 1839 – October 29, 1897) was an American political economist, and the most influential proponent of the Single Tax on land. ... Georgism, named for Henry George (1839-1897), is a philosophy and economic theory that follows from the belief that although everyone owns what they create; land, and everything else supplied by nature, belongs equally to all humanity. ...

In May 1890 he began the community-funded Brisbane weekly The Worker, in which the tone became increasingly threatening towards the employers, the government, and the British Empire itself. The defeat of the 1891 Australian shearers' strike convinced Lane that there would be no real social change without a completely new society, and The Worker increasingly became the organ of his New Australia utopian idea. 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... The 1891 Shearers Strike is one of Australias oldest and most important industrial disputes. ... See Utopia (disambiguation) for other meanings of this word Utopia, in its most common and general meaning, refers to a hypothetical perfect society. ...

Working Man's Paradise, an allogorical novel by William Lane written in support of the shearers involved in the 1891 Shearer's Strike, was published early in 1892. In the novel Lane articulated the belief that anarchism is the noblest social philosophy of all. Through the novel's philosopher and main protagonist he relates his belief that society may have to go through a period of State socialism to achieve the higher ideal of Communist anarchism. Mary Gilmore, a New Australia colonist and later a celebrated Australian writer, said in one of her letters "the whole book is true and of historical value as Lane transcribed our conversations as well as those of others". Definitions of anarchism on Wikiquote Anarchism derives from the Greek αναρχία (without archons (rulers)). Thus anarchism, in its most general meaning, is the belief that rulers are unnecessary and should be abolished. ... State socialism, broadly speaking, is any variety of socialism which relies on ownership of the means of production by the state. ... Anarchist Communism, also known as Anarcho-Communism, Communo-Anarchism or Libertarian Communism, is a political ideology related to Libertarian socialism. ... Dame Mary Gilmore (1864-1962), Australian socialist poet and journalist, was born Mary Cameron near Goulburn, New South Wales. ...

New Australia Colony

Contriving a split in the Australian labour movement between those who went on to form the Australian Labor Party and the permanently disaffected, Lane refused the Queensland Government's offer of a grant of land on which to create a utopian settlement, and began an Australia-wide movement for the creation of a new society elsewhere on the globe, peopled by rugged and sobre Australian bushmen and their proud wives. The Australian Labor Party or ALP is Australias oldest political party. ...

Eventually Paraguay was decided upon, and Lane and his family and several hundred acolytes from New South Wales,Queensland and South Australia departed Mort Bay in Sydney in the "Royal Tar" on the 1st of July 1893. Motto: Orta Recens Quam Pura Nites (Newly Risen, How Brightly You Shine) Nickname: First State, Premier State Other Australian states and territories Capital Sydney Government Governor Premier Const. ... Motto: Audax at Fidelis (Bold but Faithful) Nickname: Sunshine State/Smart State Other Australian states and territories Capital Brisbane Government Governor Premier Const. ... Motto: United for the Common Wealth Nickname: Festival State Other Australian states and territories Capital Adelaide Government Governor Premier Const. ... Sydney is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian state of New South Wales, as well as Australias largest and oldest city (founded in 1788). ...

New Australia soon had its crisis, brought on by the issues of inter-racial relationships (Lane singled out the Guarani as racially taboo) and alcohol. Lane's dictatorial manner soon offsided many in the community, and by the time the second boat-load of utopians arrived from Adelaide a year later, Lane had left with a core of faithful to form a new colony nearby called Cosme. This article needs to be cleaned up to conform to a higher standard of quality. ... Adelaide is the state capital and most populous city of the Australian state of South Australia. ...

Eventually Lane became completely disillusioned with the process, and returned to Australia in 1899, from whence he went with his family to New Zealand. After an initial depression, he soon refound his old verve as a pseudonymous feature-writer for the New Zealand Herald ("Tohunga"), only this time as ultra-conservative and pro-Empire. His racism turned ever towards Asia, the First World War saw him develop the most extreme anti-German sentiments imaginable. He died in 1917 whilst still working for the Herald, much-admired, having lost one son Charles at a cricket match in Cosme in Paraguay, and another Donald on the first day of the ANZAC landings (April 25, 1915) on the beaches of Gallipoli. The New Zealand Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Auckland, New Zealand. ... Ypres, 1917, in the vicinity of the Battle of Passchendaele. ... Gallipoli, called Gelibolu in modern Turkish, is a town in northwestern Turkey. ...

References

• Gavin Souter's account of Lane and New Australia in his A Peculiar People
• Peter Bruce's thesis (Univ Sydney) The Journalistic Career of William Lane.
• Lane, William (1892) Working Man's Paradise - a novel written to support the strikers during the Shearer's Strike of 1891
• Larry Petrie (1859-1901) - Australian Revolutionist? by Bob James
• Whitehead, Anne (1997) Paradise Mislaid - in Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia